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Click hereOne window hangs
in a brown frame
with a lavendar candle
and patchouli incense
on the sill to demarcate
my world.
Inside
everything is contained.
Words are stacked on discs,
warmth is preserved in walls.
I'm wrapped in a sweater
holding thoughts twisted
thread to bone, woven
under skin in knots of memory:
benches on Saturday morning,
bike rides, funeral black heels
picking over icy sidewalks,
stepping over cracks
while the river rolls sluggish
on a winter white
wedding day.
Inside
everything is contained.
Life is constructed
around cans of soup,
dishes and a hairbrush
hope spun on filaments
of fragile web silk.
Outside
nothing is contained
by the sky. The wind
whips snowdrifts on the deck,
raises them in foggy specters
that rise only to dematerialize
in ice dust, only to disappear.
This morning four crows
were wrought in pine branches
like sleek iron weathervanes.
I'm still here on my side
of the glass, but when doves
burst from under the barn,
the crows animated my frame
of reference
and flew away.
Ang
I enjoyed the movement of this work. The first stanza set the mood... the division of nature and man. (the word demarcate I felt was important due to the largeness of the word and the hint of intellect hence once again dividing man and nature.)
Safety vibrated with the use of small comforts that materialized within the site of the reader. Wild abandon of nature calls to me when you describe the simplicity of outdoor life. Primal vs. intelligence. Both world examined in the complex simplicity of what they are.
Lost in the moment laced with in the two world only the unpredictable nature can break the spell.
Thank you for the lesson.
Du Lac~
That winter window one, or the one of the photo of a window? I can't remember what exactly but this piece brings echoes back to my memory.
Thanks, Ang, for another lovely poem.
Carrie.
I thought the last 8 lines were excellent but much of the rest seemed detatched - sort of observation rather than involvement.With your work I often feel I would like to see earlier drafts because I suspect your editorial and intellectual discipline ensures that you never produce anthing second rate but does it occasionally set limits?
sticks a little but I think it's a good thing.
it draws a line, makes you stop and divide this view, this is the boundary.
As for the rest , to me, it speaks of self control, how you must act in the house, the memories you must carry inside, careful not to let it seep into the outside.
the " everything is contained" doesn't just speak of the house, it speaks of the people in it and their emotions.
The " outside sequences" speak of perhaps a funeral on a winter day, that the woman is recalling, while outside all is white and bright and yet lifeless, inside is warm and safe, and we watch the ghosts and crows from the window.
Spirits, specters, appear ,disappear etc.
I can't tell if people were trying to read too much into this or maybe the simple language threw them off.
To me it was full of possibility, full of imagery and sensory triggers, and maybe a few of the phrases were " cliché'" but sometimes cliché's are what you feel and see.
And if you try to alter them or improve on them you sometimes lose the feeling in being " clever".
You could rewrite it in time, all poems could be rewritten,
over and over, but if you don't I'll still like it.